Starting at the Start for Sustainable Fashion: The Argument for Focusing on Raw Materials

By now, anyone who’s paying attention to the fashion industry knows that we have an urgent sustainability problem on our hands. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, if we stay on our current path, the fashion industry alone will take up a quarter of the entire world’s carbon budget by 2050. To avert climate catastrophe, we’re going to need a number of different creative approaches and interventions at multiple stages in the lifecycle of a garment. But to change the fashion industry’s trajectory on the deepest level, there’s a strong case for going back to the fundamentals: the raw materials themselves. By looking to innovate the very fabric of the industry, we can move away from Bandaid solutions and greenwashed half-measures and resolve some of fashion’s toughest challenges right at the source.